Fly Away
by peroxidepest17
Summary: Agito isn’t real.


**Title: **Fly Away  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Universe:** Air Gear  
**Theme/Topic:** Wings  
**Character/Pairing/s:** IkkixAkito, insinuations of AgitoxAkito  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** Spoilers for the Behemoth battle. Sap and stupidity. XD;;  
**Word Count:** 2,140  
**Time:** 3hrs or something like that?  
**Summary:** Agito isn't real.  
**Dedication:** request from yukisuzu on my Air Gear/Holic/Reborn meme. Never wrote AgixAki before!  
**A/N: **This probably FAILS at the prompt OH SO MUCH. And I'm not really good at writing serious AG fic, but it was worth a try, I suppose, since I think anything with an AgixAki theme is bound to be more serious than funny. --;; Also, this is probably too long and boring considering what it is. SORRY.  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, though I wish constantly.  
**Distribution:** Just lemme know.

* * *

He feels enough that sometimes he thinks he is. Sometimes he can even pretend he is, when he's in control and can move how he wants, can reach out and touch the things in the real world and act like a real live boy.

For a moment or two Agito feels real.

But then Akito's voice is always there in the back, laughing, crying, speaking, thinking, _everything_, and when he hears it the illusion is shattered and he remembers why he's even here (if he really is at all) in the first place.

He's a tool.

A shield, a weapon, a _device_—some_thing _and not someone, as real as he feels every now and again.

He's not naïve enough to keep fooling himself all the time of course, is practical enough to know in the very darkest parts of his (Akito's) mind that he's only there until he's not needed anymore-- until Akito can fly on his own again.

Smile and not hurt and be just fine without him.

Agito knows he's just a temporary fix.

And it's weird, knowing that you're entire existence is a fallacy and to be okay with it, but Agito supposes he's always been the more pragmatic kind of illusionary creature—he doesn't want any bullshit, no sentimental beliefs that when he makes the left hand reach out or the right foot step forward or the lips quirk or the voice talk, that it's all something he can do all on his own.

Not his body. Not his _life._

He's never been much of a pretender.

So he knows it's only going to last until Akito doesn't need him anymore, and then he'll melt quietly back into whatever nowhere he came from, hoping (if he can still hope after that), that Akito will be alright, that a sweet kid like that will never need someone (some_thing_) like him ever again.

He tells himself he can fly away without a backwards glance when that day comes, and not have a single regret about it at all so long as Akito's smile, his laughter, his _freedom _are the last things sees and hears and feels on this earth.

"_Don't think like that, Agito!"_ Akito cries when he hears those sorts of thoughts from his darker half, pouting and saying, "_You're you and I'm me and we'll always be together, right?"_

Agito thinks-- with no small sense of irony-- that it's pretty damned funny Akito can _read his thoughts_ and still believe sweet things like that with all his heart.

"_It's true, isn't it? Ne, Agito, it's true, right?"_

"_We'll be together as long as you need me_," Agito tells him—practically-- and if he could, he thinks he would reach out and pat his lighter half's hair or something, except he knows it'd look weird on the outside to others, look like he's giving himself some sort of awkward head rub or something.

"_I'll always need you!"_ Akito promises then, and is thus easily and genuinely reassured that Agito will always have a place within him.

Agito thinks that that isn't the case-- or that it soon won't be anyway—in the very near future.

Because there's a loud-mouth spiky haired idiot that tells him so, one who suddenly came into their lives (life?) and caught Akito's attention, caught his smiles and all his hope and heart and wishes and dreams with just one confident look. Now there's one here who can use hands that are his own—that belong to _him--_ to protect Akito, lift him up right into the sky he's been gone away from for far too long.

Ikki's brought back something in Akito Agito hasn't seen except for in his other half's fondest memories.

The Akito from before.

Ikki can bring that part of him back with just a careless toss of hair, one of those stupid, senseless sayings and a smile that tells the world he's gonna win it all no matter what.

Easy as all that.

Agito isn't jealous, is probably—when he can admit it to himself— more resentful of the idiotic crow than anything else because he feels this know-nothing kid who'd suddenly breezed into their lives was able do what he'd been trying to do since the day he was born deep inside Akito's mind.

Ikki, easy as one-two-three, has been able to remind Akito of what it's like to fly.

Maybe that's the power of having your own heart and soul, your own body, your own two hands, Agito supposes. Makes it easier to achieve your goals, have a purpose, protect the ones you love.

Agito thinks he kind of wishes he'd been given that chance too, knows that if he'd gotten it, he would have tried even harder, would have worked even more than he already had—or Ikki already had-- to give Akito all of that, because Akito is the most important person in the world to him.

But Akito's the most important person in the world to a "him" who knows he doesn't really exist, and that makes a hell of a lot of difference between "him" and Ikki, he supposes. Agito can't do anything with his own two hands when he doesn't have them, after all.

But if he'd had a chance like that, Agito knows he would've given Akito a thousand more things than Ikki ever could.

Maybe that means nothing then, since he can't do any of those things But even still, for a guy like him-- who may or may not be real-- Agito knows it's all he's really got to give.

Sentiment.

"_I would if I could_."

And even though he sometimes feels resentful of Ikki, he reminds himself that it doesn't matter who'd done it so long as it's done, that it's good all the same because this was what he'd wanted all along anyway.

He'd wanted Akito to not need him anymore.

To not need _anyone _and stand on his own two feet like he used to, with the strength Agito knows the twerp really has in there, buried under all the things that'd gone wrong.

Needing Ikki instead of him isn't a _huge_ step forward maybe, but it's a small one all the same, better to put your faith in a real, living, breathing human being than a shadow of something unknown.

Ikki can give Akito more of what he needs than Agito can-- can save him like Agito wanted to do, with the strength of his own two hands.

And all Agito can say on the matter is that he's sorry, he's sorry he couldn't do more for the one person who means the universe to him.

"_Sorry I couldn't give you what you needed. Sorry I couldn't help."_

Ikki will be the one to help Akito fly instead—carry him on those enormous wings of his— and it's probably better that way anyway, since Agito doesn't have any _anything _to call his own.

It's the practical thing to believe, and he tells himself over and over again that this is how it should be.

But then, one day, Ikki punches him in the face.

"What the hell are you doing, you fucking crow?!"

"I just felt like punchin' you. Look on your face, I guess."

"It's not _my_ face!"

"It's your goddamned face!"

"You just punched Akito in the face!"

"I punched _you_ in the face, because _you_ were the one lookin' all stupid like that and Akito has nothin' to do with this, you lame-excuse asshole. Now stop sulkin' around or I'll do it again."

"I'd like to see you try, you fucking…"

Ikki tosses him over his shoulder.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!"

"_Just let him show you, Agito!_" Akito chimes in then, unhelpfully.

Agito sighs. "What the fuck," he mutters, and slumps in the other boy's hold. _"What are you planning?"_ he asks his brighter half, and is only answered with a series of giggles and something light and beautiful that he'd always wanted to be the cause of but never was.

"_You'll see, Agito! Just wait and see!"_

Ikki, not saying a word, starts sprinting with Agito still slung over his shoulder, running as fast as he can and screaming at the tops of his lungs. His ATs aren't even _on_.

He jumps them off of the apex of a giant goddamned hill, never slowing down, still screaming, and they all sail right over the slope with the ground way below.

"_Look!_" Akito glees, and Agito thinks that they're _falling_ and he's not sure he wants to look at _anything_ right now, except the bloody mess left on his fist after he pounds the stupid crow's fucking head in later. But only if they survive going _splat_ on the ground, which at this height, is starting to feel goddamned unlikely.

"_This is what you wanted?!_" he shouts in his mind to Akito's half, and can't believe it.

"_This is what Ikki and I both wanted!_" is the response, and Agito can feel Akito's spirit lifting their arms together, outstretching them like wings as they fall.

And then there's a gust of wind out of nowhere and Ikki's laughter all in synch with Akito's, the sound of rustling leaves on the trees below, the whoosh of air rushing through the little nooks and crannies between the buildings behind them and gaining speed, gaining velocity.

They don't fall.

"_See? See, we can both fly!"_ Akito laughs, and Agito can see him in his mind's eye, wind whipping the hair around his/their face, his eyes closed and his smile content. _"Try it, Agito!"_

Agito doesn't.

But he feels it through Akito anyway-- can see it _through_ Akito.

And it feels real enough.

They soar for a while together like that, until Ikki whoops and grabs onto a tree branch on the way down with his free hand, laughing while Akito squeals and they end up suspended over a shallow creek by centimeters when their fall stops, dangling by a twig clenched tight in Ikki's idiotic fist.

They all stare at it.

And as if on cue, the twig promptly snaps, sending the three of them splashing into the water, landing on their asses in the cool spring current.

Agito wants to be pissed off.

Akito's laughing and his—_their—_arms are wound around one of Ikki's and holding it tight.

"_We fell_," Agito growls to Akito, but he's not really angry since his lighter half doesn't seem hurt (except for maybe that punch in the face earlier).

"_We flew, and Ikki carried us!"_ Akito tells him, matter-of-factly. _"Both of us._"

Agito sighs. _"Both of us, huh?"_

"_Yup!"_

All Agito's ever wanted in this world is to be able to lift Akito up, to send him skyward again after everything that's happened to him. He just wants to be the one this precious person leans on until he can find his own strength again, until he doesn't need Agito at all anymore.

He's never really thought about himself—never realized that maybe he needs a lift too, a boost so he can be strong enough to hoist Akito up those last few inches into that bright blue sky.

This kid, this stupid, whooping kid who's going to get them all _killed_ one day, has something Agito doesn't.

He's got two hands all his own, and two giant wings to carry someone with.

To carry them both with.

"_It was fun, right, Agito? It was fun! The three of us… we flew together!_" Akito breathes, flushed with warmth and excitement

Agito sighs. _"I guess it wasn't that bad._"

Akito only giggles at that because the crafty bastard knows that coming from Agito, that had been pretty much a confession, and when he finally releases his grip on the damned crow's arm he releases something else as well, so that it's Agito who's the one looking back at the spiky-headed idiot in that instant afterwards.

"What?" Ikki asks, nonchalant even though they're soaked through and have leaves and twigs and god knows what else tangled in their hair, down their shirts, smeared on their skin.

"If you ever do that again I'll kill you," Agito tells him.

Ikki grins. "Guess you'll be sticking around then."

A beat.

"Fuck," Agito curses, when he realizes what he'd just committed himself to.

Ikki and Akito _both_ snicker at him then, and as they drag their sorry hides out of the water before they catch pneumonia, Agito listens to the sound of their laughter mingling in the air around them, the sounds of their voices winding through the trees and into the sky above, becoming almost indistinguishable from one another the higher they climb towards the sun.

And Agito thinks to himself for just a second—just a very short second-- that it's all almost enough to make him feel real.

**END**


End file.
